


Welcome Home

by AuthentiKait



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Multi, Old!Eggsy, Spiritual themes, You may/may not expect what happens, lots of pain, prepare your tissues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 05:44:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5405237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthentiKait/pseuds/AuthentiKait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Eggsy, I've come to take you home".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> I highly recommend you listen to Radical Face's 'Welcome Home, Son' whilst reading this fic, as this song inspired the fic after all. Seriously, it will intensify all feels. Enjoy!

The last lamp was extinguished, the warmth from the now dark bulb lingering. An aged body stumps across the room, bones creaking and groaning together, the moon's pale light from the window hitting the  floorboards as with a groan, said body lowers itself into bed.

"What a day," Eggsy says aloud to himself, lying back in his bed and pulling the covers over his wizened, tired legs. The retirement party today had been quite a turn out- both new and old members of the Kingsman agency had arrived. He recalled the sea of faces, more unfamiliar bodies that known ones. But a few old friends had remained. Roxy, the former Lancelot and Eggsy's closest friend" had been unable to attend due to her recent hospitalisation.

"Fell off a ladder," she had told the hospital staff about her broken hip, but Eggsy knew better- crime fighting at close to eighty years old had taken its toll, and whilst Roxy was no longer a Kingsman, she was a grey-haired vigilante of sorts in her local community. And she point blank refused to let her age slow her down.

Eggsy wished the same could be said for him. The oldest active agent in Kingsman history, serving a whopping fifty eight years before his retirement, including a stint as Arthur, the highest possible role and honour an agent could receive. Roxy and he had been in close contention for the role, and who could serve the longest, a friendly rivalry, but he had beat her by two years. "Barely," she scoffed at him from her hospital bed, machines blipping and making strange noises when he had come to visit. Typical Rox.

Eggsy hadn't wanted to retire, not at all. Kingsman was his life's work, his everything, and giving it up had cost him dearly. But he knew he had made the right decision, as much as it had stung at the time. He wasn't as fast or good as he used to be, he had been forced to admit, and the younger agents were doing twice the amount of work he did, in half the time. Whilst he was confident his replacement in the Arthur role, a former agent Kay, he knew he would miss the lifestyle dearly.

"But of course you can visit!" The new Arthur had clapped a hand on his drooping shoulders, as the laughter of his former colleagues rang out in his mostly deaf ears. You're somewhat of a legend among our ranks. The young ones look up to you immensely".

But Eggsy had swore to himself he wouldn't visit- wouldn't walk in and see how the place managed just fine without him, wouldn't see he wasn't needed anymore.

When Dagonet and the new Lancelot  had presented him with the plaque, a world record of sorts, he had to summon every whisper of strength still in his gnarled body to keep from crying. "Certifying that Mr Gary "Eggsy" Unwin has completed Fifty Eight Years of service in the Kingman Tailors, a current record time". The applause had rang out as he shook both men's hands, ignoring the comments that he should hang it in his lounge room. He couldn't. Not ever. Not when that record, those fifty eight years, only symbolised how much he had lost.

A wild fit of coughing took over him, and Eggsy snatched for his pill canister, standing on his bedside drawers. Still gasping for air, he grasped the glass of water beside it and chugged it quickly,  wiping his mouth of the back of his hand as the coughs subsided.

A mission twenty years ago in Malta, dealing with some form of poisonous gas had left Eggsy with a set of rather overworked lungs and frequent coughing fits, among other consequences for other missions. The little finger on his right hand had never worked the same after it had been crushed during interrogation by a drug cartel in Bolivia, and Eggsy was three quarters deaf in his left ear and half in his right, each from multiple respective bomb explosions over his career. The three identical, pale scars that crossed his left wrist, where he had run afoul of a lion undercover in Tanzania.

Eggsy could probably list all his sores and hurts into the next century, but in his mind, they were all worth it- for they were a reminder to him that as a Kingsman agent, he had completed over three thousand missions in his time. A feat to most definitely be proud of.

Settling back against his pillows, Eggsy pulled at the chain around his neck. The medallion caught in the moon's light nearby, glinting and glittering after all these years as Eggsy surveyed its all too familiar shape, knowing its lines and curves, and the inscription off by heart. Just like he knew the person who had given it to him.

Harry. Thinking about him still caused Eggsy physical pain, like a punch in the gut, a squeeze to his heart, and explosion in his brain. Gone for fifty eight years, now almost forgotten by time and the new Kingsman agents, who would never know his name. Sometimes Eggsy found himself desperately trying to recall the sound of his voice. His laugh. The way he had looked when he strode smoothly through the door of the Black Prince with those long, lean legs. And Eggsy would panic, thinking he was losing him all over again, until out of the blue he would remember the way his dark hair glinted under the lights, and those rare smiles he seemed to save just for Eggsy.

The guilt Eggsy had felt for beating his mentor's service record had rang true today.

But Harry hadn't been just a mentor to Eggsy- he had meant far more than that. And Eggsy's heart had snapped clean in two the second that gun went off, the second he saw the bullet enter Harry's skull. The second the man he had loved, who he was just coming to know in a new and beautiful way, fell, dead.

Even after all these years, Eggsy couldn't stop the tears welling in his slowly blinding eyes. They rolled down his cheeks and he began to sob, lying there, clutching the medal to his chest as he recalled the lover that had never come home. Breathing shaky breaths, wrinkled hands clutching the medallion on the chain, Eggsy made a whispered, desperate wish, made thousands of times over the years.

"I wish I could see you again, Harry".

As his sobs subsided,  Eggsy lay back against the pillows, his heart beating slower and slower. A single tear rolled down his cheek as his chest rose and fell one final time. And Eggsy's last living thought was Harry's face, lips quirked up into a bittersweet smile as Eggsy slipped away.

~*~

The first thing Eggsy saw was white. Blinding white light searing his old eyeballs, making him squint. Then he realized he was sprawled on the ground, and with a groan, keeping his eyes firmly shut, he slowly got to his feet, joints creaking angrily in protest. Where was he?

Eggsy. He heard his name, and agonisingly cracked one eye open to the white landscape before him. Everything was so white, and he could not differentiate between land and sky. Was this some assignment he had fallen asleep upon?

Eggsy. He heard his name called, and spun around, almost falling to his knees at the sight.

Harry. Harry fucking Hart. Standing several feet away, a slight smile on his face, so similar to the one Eggsy had seen before he-

And before he knew what he was doing, he hobbled over to Harry at a speed before unknown, threw his arms around the man's very solid form, sobbing unashamedly into his shoulder.

"Ya rotten bastard!" Eggsy choked, tears running in rivulets down his cheeks. "I'm dead and ya just turn up, Ya-" he lost himself in sobs again, clutching his arms around Harry's waist. The agent soothed him, one hand running down Eggsy's achy back.

"It's alright, Eggsy," he soothed in that voice Eggsy would have killed to hear one final time, making the old man sob ever harder. "I'm here now". Unshed tears shone in Harry's own eyes as he looked down at his once young lover, now older than even him in death.

Pulling away for a moment, Eggsy looked Harry over, seemingly committing him to memory. "Well, look how th' tables 'ave turned!" He joked, smiling wateryly at the former Kingsman. "Now I'm the old man!"

"That you are, Eggsy," Harry murmured, the way he said Eggsy's name sending a tingle up Eggsy's spine. And pulling Eggsy to him, Harry bestowed upon him the sweetest, most pure of kisses, a kiss that spoke of love, of loss, of years and years of pain and grief, and one broken promise, all condensed into the touch of lips against lips. I will come home to you, Eggsy. I love you.

Eggsy was still crying when they broke apart. "Fuck, I missed ya," he sniffled in his familiar accent. "And how come ya kissing me? I'm not exactly aesthetically pleasing no more," he jested, raising a gnarly eyebrow at Harry, arms still firmly wrapped around the now younger agent's waist.

 

"Eggsy Unwin," Harry sighed disapprovingly, looking down into the shorter man's eyes, still sparkling with tears, and cupping his jowled cheek. "Before I... died, I promised you something. Do you remember what I said the night before?"

Eggsy recalled it as clear as day, in Harry's townhouse lying in bed, laughing in his arms. Whispered promises of love and forever, of passion and the sweet agony that was their love. The best day of his life. "You said," he whispered, eyes boring into Harry's, clouded with the memory, of those spoken words Harry had murmured into his ear when they embraced that final time. "That you would love me until the end of time".

"And I have done, and intend to continue to do so," Harry returned. "Eggsy," he pleaded begging his lover to look into his eyes. "You think a little thing like age is going to stop me loving you? It didn't stop you wanting me, if I recall correctly, despite me being twice your age".

Eggsy nodded reluctantly, and Harry pressed a kiss to his wrinkled forehead. "Oh my love," Harry breathed, voice threatening to break, holding Eggsy tight against him, inhaling his comfortingly familiar scent. "How I have missed you. And what a sweet torture it was, to watch you grow old without me."

They held each other for a long moment, lovers reunited by death, before Eggsy realised the suit he was pressed aginst, the one Harry was wearing, wasn't the suit he had died in.

"What's this?" He questioned, pulling at the lapel of the pure snow coloured suit, silver pinstripes running down it.  
"The old one was, erm, a little ruined," Harry admitted, and the memory of Harry’s blood splattering a different, grey suit made a knife twist in Eggsy's gut. "But look at yourself," Harry gestured to Eggsy, another smile gracing his features. "We match".

A surprised gasp left Eggsy as he looked down at himself for the first time, the brilliant white Kingsman suit against his skin. Reaching down under the collar, he felt the familiar chain and pulled, so the medallion came into view.

Harry's face blanched. "You still wore it," he muttered surprisedly, hands trembling slightly.

"It reminded me of ya. A piece of ya I could carry aroun' with me until... until we met again".

The intensity of the gaze between the two men was paramount. "So how come ya look the same?" Eggsy questioned, changing the subject, and looked in horror at Harry. "Does this mean I'm stuck as an old-"

"Calm down Eggsy, no," Harry laughed, chuckling slightly, taking his worried lover into his arms again. "You can choose to be any age you wish here".

"Then why did ya choose to be the same?" Eggsy queried curiously, peering up at Harry.

Harry took a moment before answering, face unfathomable. "I wanted to stay the same because this was how I was, the last time I saw you. And that point in my life, Eggsy, was honestly the happiest I'd  ever been in my entire life. You can change it on a whim here, but I don't believe I ever will. And also," he added "I stayed this way so when you eventually joined me, you would recognise me".

Eggsy pulled Harry's head down in order to kiss him. "That," he began hoarsely "Is the single most wonderful and selfless thing I've ever heard of, you do-gooding twat".

Harry chuckled again at that, and Eggsy took the opportunity to ask more questions. "So how do I change myself? Where are we? Are there other people here?"

Glancing at his left wrist, Eggsy frowned and yanked back the sleeve of the white bespoke suit. The skin was wrinkled, still old, but the scar from the lions claws was gone. Looking to his right hand, the pinky was perfectly straight, Eggsy's breath hitched. And he knew if he checked every inch of his body, all the scar he had accumulated over the years would be gone.

"And where're me scars?" He demanded to know.

"Calm down, Eggsy," Harry appeased him, running a comforting finger along his chin. "Firstly, you can't change yourself, not yet, but soon. At the present moment, we're somewhere between existence and oblivion, but don't fret, I know what to do. And as for people, you'll see soon enough. Your scars faded because you don't need them anymore, not here".

"Eggsy,"  Harry trained his eyes on his lover's, voice soft at the elderly man's concerned glance. "I've come to take you home."

Letting go of his waist, Harry backed away slightly, and held out his hand for Eggsy to take, eyes trusting. Eggsy went to reach for him, but stopped himself. This was it. He was dead, his life was over, and he was in limbo between the two states. And he had to make his choice: to go with Harry, or to remain in uncertainty.

"Eggsy, do you trust me?"

It was a no-brainer. "Yes, Harry".

At the touch of Eggsy's wizened hand in Harry's, a pathway of white tiles, just wide enough for two people,  appeared before them, winding up and around and around  what appeared to be a giant white mountain, which Eggsy could see the top of, glimmering faintly in the distance.

"Where does it lead?" He asked, lacing his fingers through Harry's own.

"Home".

"What's home?" He asked confusedly, as Harry began to walk down the pathway, leading Eggsy along with him. And Harry, smiling to himself, replied "You will see".

They walked in silence for a while, beginning to enter the winding mountain path. Eggsy, however was still bursting with questions as usual.

"Did ya get taken along 'ere to, uh, home as well?"

"I did". Harry answered, looking ahead as they continued their journey.

"And who brought you home?"

Harry was quiet for a while as they paced forward. "My mother," he said finally and quietly.

Eggsy took it as a cue to stay silent for a while. He had never had the opportunity to meet Harry's mother, not only because their courtship had barely begun- but because Harry's mother had died when Harry himself was quite young, leaving her only son an orphan. 

"Your mother was going to bring you," Harry said suddenly, and Eggsy turned his head to look at the agent.

"Then how come ya brought me instead?" Eggsy wondered aloud as they strode along. Despite the mountain appearing large at first, the journey up it wasn't taking quite as long as Eggsy thought- thry were about a quarter of the way up already.

Harry smiled again slightly. "She said to me that she had been given the chance to spend her entire life with you, and did, whereas I'd had precious to little of mine. So she put aside her differences with me, and told me that it was only right I should be the one to bring you home".

Eggsy was slightly stunned at this admission, before asking "Will I see Mum soon?"

Harry could barely contain his grin. "She's waiting for you right now". A cry was heard to his left, to the side of the wide path, and Eggsy barely had time to let go of Harry's hand before his mother crushed her to him, crying into his shoulder as he hugged her tightly.

"Mum," he choked out, squeezing her to his chest. His mother looked exactly the way she had when she had died sixteen years ago in that hospital bed, Eggsy and Daisy clutching her hands as she slipped peacefully away. "My boy," she sobbed, tears streaming down her face "My lil' Egg. You're coming home now, babe, you're coming home. Welcome home".  Looking over Harry's shoulder, she nodded to Harry in acknowledgement. "I'll see you at home," she whispered in Eggsy's ear. "I'll be waiting for ya".

And letting go of him, she stepped off the path, still smiling and crying as she disappated into thin air.

"Where'd she go?" Eggsy looked around wildly for his mother, but was calmed by Harry interlocking his fingers with his again.

"She told you she's waiting at home," Harry reminded him. "And she is. You'll see her again very soon, Eggsy, I promise".

"How far away is home?" Eggsy asked, still coming to terms with his brief encounter with his mother.

"Not too much further," Harry placated Eggsy, leading him further and further along the path. A hand then clapped down upon Eggsy's shoulder, and he exclaimed in fright, until he saw it was Jamal, one of his street friends from his youth. "Bruv!" Jamal exclaimed, pulling Eggsy into an embrace, clapping him on the back. "This place is well fit, yeah? Welcome home, bruv, see ya there!" As quickly as he had appeared, Jamal was gone. Looking not a day over 24, the very age he had been when he'd been shot, warring gangs, with Jamal caught in the middle of a misunderstanding.  Eggsy remembered hearing the news, almost a year after V Day, and pouring himself a stiff drink.

"How many more people I know am I gonna see?" Eggsy looked again towards Harry.

"We're halfway there, Eggsy, so I assume not too many more. But that being said, there is a rather large crowd waiting for you". Eggsy would have asked more questions, but a wave of fatigue had overtaken him, and he stumbled on the tiles, looking down into the white oblivion that was so very far below him at the base of the mountain.

Harry caught him under his arms, and pulled him to his feet,urmuring words of encouragement. "W-why am I so tired, 'Arry?" Eggsy mumbled, swaying slightly.

"It's just your body getting ready to make the rest of the journey home," Harry soothed, and set Eggsy firmly on his feet.

"You're sure this ain't just a dream? And I ain't gonna wake up and feel like complete shit?" Eggsy began worriedly, taking a few more steps forward, but Harry shushed him again.

"Eggsy, this is not a dream. I swear to you, upon my love for you". Harry's face had turned serious. "I would never hurt you this way in a dream".

"Wait," Eggsy exclaimed suddenly, realisation dawning upon him. "All those dreams I had of ya- was that actually ya, not jus' the memory?"

Eggsy had dreamt of Harry almost every night until his own death. Sometimes good dreams, memories of their times together. Sometimes nightmares, where Harry died again and again, and Eggsy could not reach him in time.

Harry smiled ruefully. "You can't begin to fathom how much it hurt me to see you in those dreams, to talk to you, hear your voice, but not be able to touch you. For in dreams, there is a sort of barrier, you see. And I could not break it. Only death could," he explained, to Eggsy's awestruck face.

"Now come along, we're almost there," he continued, helping Eggsy hobble along. They were about to crest the hill when a group of familiar faces appeared on the path, grinning and waving. "Percival!" Eggsy exclaimed as the deceased agent ran into his arms. "Gawain! Bors!" He looked around at his longtime friends. "It's so wonderful to see ya again," he whispered, eyes filling with tears as the men laughed and smiled with him, clad also in the white Kingsman suits.

"Welcome home, Galahad!" They chorused, and shooting a grin Harry's way, disappeared.

"Do you think they would miss bringing you home?" Harry questioned Eggsy,  lips twitching again into a contented smile. "Percival's been rather impatient, to tell you the truth. It may sound morbid, but occasionally, he would look down upon you and tell you to hurry up and croak already".

Eggsy couldn't contain his laughter, despite Harry's morbid admission. "That's Alistair for ya, it even killed 'im in the end," he joked, and the pair stepped onto the top of the mountain.

A crowd of people Eggsy moved cheered at the sight of him, on either side of the tiled path. Eyes following the path, Eggsy noted it stretched right to the very peak of the mountain, upon which door, white of course, stood alone. A smile flicked across Eggsy's face as Harry guided him down into the throng of faces. He spotted Jamal, Percival, Gawain and Bors, all present in the crowd. And his mother, face wet with tears still smiling, hand holding on tight to a young man's- a man, whose familiar  face sent a jolting shockwave through Eggsy's stomach. He hasn't seen this face since he was 7 years old.

The man's free arm stretches out and grabs his arm, gaze meeting his in apology, begging, pleading him, apologies written in his eyes. "My boy....my son".

And Eggsy nods to Lee Unwin, pausing to grip his fathers arm. "Dad," he chokes, before they embrace quickly, fleetingly, Harry waiting patiently by Eggsy's side.

Then the man who gave Eggsy his hair, his jaw, and those startling eyes melts back into the crowd next to his mum, with the promise of "we'll meet again soon" spurring Eggsy to continue his journey. Spurring him on towards the next step, and the step after that, towards knowing the man of which he had so few remaining memories, who he had lost far too young.

But amongst the crowd, familiar face after familiar face, there was one missing, one he had longed to see almost as much as Harry's.

Progressing closer and closer towards the door, Eggsy turned his head this way and that, looking from side to side, between bodies, despite to catch a glimpse of-

And he was there, standing arms reach away, tears silently slipping down his cheeks, looking not a day over fifty.

"Merlin," Eggsy sobbed, emotions reaching boiling point as he hurled himself into the crying agent's arms. The pair of them sank down onto the path, hugging so hard Eggsy thoight his ribs might break.

"Oh I missed ye, Eggsy," Merlin said, voice muffled against Eggsy's frail shoulder. Pulling back to look at the elderly agent, he said quietly, a benign smile on his face, "And thank yeh for lookin after Rox after I..." he paused, swallowing hard.

"She misses ya desperately," Eggsy murmured to him, and Merlin nodded, jaw clenching furiously in an effort to keep from crying. The two were madly in love, always had been, their wedding in 2023 had been a right hoot. And it had almost broken Roxy when Merlin had passed almost a decade ago in his sleep, cool hand still clutched in hers. But she had done what Roxy did best- carry on.

"And I her. Someday, Eggsy," Merlin breathed, voice cracking. "Someday, maybe soon, I'll bring her home". An image of Roxy in his position came to him, and Eggsy blinked hurriedly, struggling to keep himself in check. God, he missed her already, and knew that the news of his death would hurt her beyond belief, his best friend of so many years. "

And I'll be there to help ya," he whispered, as Merlin's strong arms helped him to his feet with a pat on his back for comfort.

"Welcome home, Galahad," Merlin smiled crookedly, before rejoining the sea of people, smiling after him as Harry took his love's hand once more, to lead him those final few steps to the door.

Just once step away however, a tiny blur zipped across the pathway and jumped in Eggsy's legs, the old man emitting a cry of delight.

"JB!" Bending down, he pulled the pug into his arms, worn out muscles straining, and buried his face in the soft, comforting fur, tears dripping onto the dog freely. When he pulled back, JB poked his head forward and licked his owner's nose, yipping happily, tail wagging about a hundred miles an hour.

"Oh, I missed ya too, boy," Eggsy cooed, stroking his hand through the pug's fur before setting him down again, where the dog stood by his feet, as if waiting for something.

Looking finally to the door, now open, Eggsy could see the enture universe through it.  A kaliedoscope of galaxies and nebulas and stars, in an array of colours so brilliant Eggsy almost had to shield his eyes.

"Is this it?" He turned to Harry, who nodded knowingly. "Home".

"Ya aren't gonna leave me now, are ya?" Eggsy asked fretfully, fear engulfing him. To step through that door, and into oblivion, alone, leaving his family and friends behind again, was more than he could bear.

"Oh, my dear boy". Harry's arms circled Eggsy, pulling him in for a quick tight hug. "I wouldn't dream of it," he breathed into Eggsy's hair, kissing the tip of his balding head, the wispy white hairs that still clung on for dear life.

"They'll be right behind us," he gestured to the gathering of now silent loved ones, at Eggsy's questioning glance.

"Alrigh' then". A content peaceful smile settled upon Eggsy's face as he gazed ahead, wrapping his fingers around Harry's. "Let's go home".

And Eggsy Unwin and Harry Hart went into their forever.


End file.
